Not happy with Thrifty!

We ended the underground tour right by a Starbuck’s – go figure we were in Seattle. It was not the original Starbuck’s but I figured I needed to go to at least one while I was there. So I went in and got a “dessert in a glass” since I don’t drink coffee. As we walked back to the car we came across this great little boutique – Divas Dollz – it had vintage and vintage inspired clothes, lingerie, shoes, jewelry… everything was so girly, lacy, frilly, so up my ally! I didn’t buy anything since we were short on time, but I am definitely putting on my list next time I go to Seattle. I think the Pioneer Square area is becoming my favorite part of Seattle. We then jumped in the car and drove over to Pike’s Place market to pick up some flowers for our cabin for the week. Since it was as crazy over by the market as the rest of downtown, I dropped Shannon off with $10 and drove around the block while she picked up some flowers. They were so beautiful and lasted all week. (Picture to come soon)

We then drove to the Thrifty car rental place by the piers. I had found this place in June during the crazy police chase I got caught in. I know I have not told that whole story, but I will some day. On the June trip, I had a few issues with Thrifty, it took an hour at the airport just to get the car – it was so frustrating. But after searching they still had the cheapest rate to pick up at the airport and drop off at the pier. So I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and try again. This time getting the car at the airport was a breeze and I thought the June incident was a flunk. I was wrong. We pulled into the lot and tried to figure out where to park, we finally saw an employee wave us over to parking spot. We parked the car and started gathering our stuff and the worker kept rushing us to get out. I found it a little rude, but thought, fine you can take care of the trash. We brought our luggage up to the sidewalk and Shannon stayed outside with it while I went in to pay. When I walked into the building I noticed a huge difference from when I was in there in July. There were office supplies and files all over the floor, trash all round and it was just filthy. I could not believe it. When I walked there were 5 people in line in front of me. It was then I found out that the employee outside was the only one working there and every time a new car came in to be returned she would have to run out and check it in. I waited in line almost 30 minutes just to pay. It was crazy – poor Shannon had no idea what was going on until I texted her. After I finally got through the line I went back outside to wait for the shuttle. We were a bit worried since the whole time we were there no shuttles came. In addition there were about 30 people all waiting. We talked about walking to the pier, but with all our stuff I am not sure we could handle it. Finally the shuttle came and it was so tiny – there were seats for about 10 people and 30 to fit in. I wish I had a picture of us all crammed in the shuttle. I sat down and Shannon was practically floating on everyone’s lap. It was insane. Thankfully it was a short ride and we were on our way to our home for the next week – The Star Princess.

A History Lesson

Sunday morning Shannon and I got up, packed up our room and set off to go to Pioneer Square downtown to take the underground tour. This was the thing I was the most excited about (besides seeing my cousins) on this trip to Seattle. I know I am a nerd, who loves history. :)Before we went downtown we needed to find a store to pick up a few things and for Shannon to double check that her camera memory card was working. We found a Walgreen’s and both went off to grab what we needed. As I got into line I noticed this man in front of me in line. He was wearing denim dickie overalls, a dingy t-shirt, a straw “cowboy” hat and a Bluetooth. I don’t have a picture cause I thought that might be kind of rude, but the song “One of these things does not belong with the others” was going through my head.

We then drove downtown to go on the tour. We had hoped to go on the 10:00 am, but realized we were not going to make it, so we then planned on the 11:00. It is good thing we had that option since downtown was crazy with the Seattle Seahawk, San Francisco 49ers games going on. We search all over for a place to park. The lots were charging between $25 and $40 for the day, and we really did not want to pay that for a couple of hours. While we were driving around we saw some pretty random things, people tailgating is some park not very close to the stadium, a marching band walking and playing down the street and your typical football fans. We drove around until 10:45 looking for a spot and could not find one. At that point Shannon jumped out of the car to go buy tickets and we thought we were just going to have to bite the bullet and pay that much for parking. UGH! Then as I turned the corner to go to the closest $25 lot I noticed a girl getting into her car at a meter. I could not believe my luck. She pulled out and I quickly claimed my stop. Of course I had to parallel park, which is something I don’t do too often. But I performed a perfect maneuver and made it to the tour in time to quick use the restroom before the tour started.

Pioneer Square is a neighborhood in the southwest section of Seattle that was once the heart of the city. When the first people came to the Seattle are this is where they settled and it was a thriving community, but soon this area was better known for its shady activities. The term Skid Row originated in this area during this time as a way of describing Pioneer Square. In 1889 the whole area pretty much burned down, which is how the underground came to be – I will get into those details in a bit. By the 1960’s the heart of the city have moved and many officials had big plans for this area, including tearing down many of the historical buildings to build parking lots and new roads. Thankfully a group of preservationists went to work to have the area designated as a national historical area and the deconstruction of the area stopped. Today this area is thriving and often noted as the center of Seattle’s night life. This was the first time I had been to Pioneer Square and I really loved this area. Unfortunately we only had the morning to be there, so it is on my list of places to return to, someday.

Here is a picture of the Pioneer Building.

A closer look at the arch.

A cool looking building in Pioneer Square.The Seattle Underground Tour started in Doc Maynard’s Public House, a restored 1890s saloon.

Here is Doc Maynard's

Here is the sign on the door.

The guides tell you a brief history of Seattle, while I remember some of it, I will revert to Wikipedia for the summary…

Seattle's first buildings were wooden. In 1889, a cabinetmaker accidentally overturned and ignited a glue pot. An attempt to extinguish it with water spread the burning grease-based glue. The fire chief was out of town, and although the volunteer fire department responded, they made the mistake of trying to use too many hoses at once. They never recovered from the subsequent drop in water pressure, and the Great Seattle Fire ended up destroying 33 city blocks.

Here is the city before the fire. Here is a plaque telling about the fire – how would you like to be forever known as the guy who set Seattle on fire. While a destructive fire was not unusual for the time, the response of the city leaders was. Instead of rebuilding the city as it was before, they made two strategic decisions. First, they ordered that all rebuilding use stone or brick—insurance against a similar disaster in the future. They also decided to take advantage of the destruction to regrade the streets one to two stories higher than the original street grade. Pioneer Square had originally been built mostly on filled-in tidelands and as a consequence it often flooded. The new street level also assisted in ensuring that gravity-assisted flush toilets didn't back up during high tide in Elliott Bay.

Here is a plaque on the actions the city took.

A picture of the construction.

To regrade, the streets were lined with concrete walls which formed narrow alleyways between the walls and the buildings on either side of the street, and a wide "alley" where the street was. The naturally steep hillsides were used, and through a series of sluices, material was washed into the wide "alleys", effectively raising the streets to the desired new level, generally twelve feet higher than before, though some places were nearly thirty feet.

At first, pedestrians climbed ladders to go between street level and the sidewalks in front of the building entrances. Brick archways were constructed next to the road surface, above the submerged sidewalks. Skylights with small panes of clear glass, (which later turned to amethyst-colored because of manganese in the glass), were installed, creating the area now called the Seattle Underground.

This is one of the Skylights.

This is another Skylight looking up from the underground.

Here it the same sky light from the side walk - the purple is pretty visable here.

When they reconstructed their buildings, merchants and landlords knew that it would just be a matter of time before what was originally the ground floor would be underground, and what was originally the next floor up would be the new ground floor. As a result, there is very little decoration on the doors and windows of the original ground floor, but extensive decoration on the new ground floor.

Here is a picture of the rebuilt city before the streets were raised. This is a bank before the streets were raised.

This is that same doorway, underground.
Once the new sidewalks were complete, building owners moved their businesses to the new ground floor, although merchants carried on business in the lowest floors of buildings that survived the fire, and pedestrians continued to use the underground sidewalks lit by the glass cubes (still seen on some streets) embedded in the grade-level sidewalk above.

This is a teller cage. We also walked through the bank vault that was used then. They claimed it is haunted, but we did not see anything. In 1907 the city condemned the Underground for fear of bubonic plague, two years before the 1909 World Fair in Seattle (Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition). The basements were left to deteriorate or were used as storage. In some cases, they became illegal flophouses for the homeless, gambling halls, speakeasies, and opium dens.

Only a small portion of the Seattle Underground has been restored and made safe and accessible to the general public on guided tours.

This is a common use of the underground – a storage area for trash.

Here are some pictures of the underground area we toured.

These are the floors that are sinking due to the fact that they used sawdust to originally fill the tide plains.

Up to the Market

For those of you who have not been to Seattle, the city is built on some very large hills, actually cliffs. To get to the Pike Place Market from the water you have to go up about a million steps. I might be exaggerating a bit, but while you are in the process of climbing it feels like a million.

Once we arrived I showed Shannon where the first Starbucks was located and then we made our way over the main part of the market. The market was much busier then the previous time I was here, I have to imagine it was due to the fact it was a Saturday and many of the locals come here to get fresh produce, fish, flowers, etc. Here we each are with the “infamous” sign.

Then we were successful in taking a picture of the two of us by holding the camera out in front.
And an up-close one of the sign. We went over to the fish stand and watched them sell and throw some fish.
Then they handed this big fish to a boy in the crowd. Yuck, I hope he washed his hands after holding this.
We then went over the pepper stand. For some reason I just love how they put these displays together. This wreath was something new, I had not seen it in June. Very cool!
Then there are all the flowers. I absolutely love fresh flowers and they are all so amazing at the market. Here is some pretty statice Here is a nice fall bouquet
And these pretty pink stargazer lilies – I took these in honor of our cruise critic group – we were named the Stargazers.
Here are a row of flowers for $5 each! The flowers are so cheap here it is unbelievable. You would pay so much more for these anywhere else. We then moved onto the fresh fruit
- quick update on the this fruit picture, Shannon and I have both gone through these pictures several times, and it was only today, 10/14 that we noticed the huge lizard eating a peach. Hmm... not sure if it was take your pet to the market day or not.... And vegetables
Pasta anyone?
As we were leaving we saw this cute parking sign.
We then walked behind the market to the fun little park I had found in June to get some great sky line pictures. Here is Shan with the city behind her.
After we left the market we headed back to our hotel. Here is our room for the night - much bigger then our cabin for the week. We then headed up towards Kirkland to have dinner with my cousin, Betsy and Rob for dinner. I wanted to take Shannon across the floating bridges, which is one part of Seattle that I absolutely love and I am fascinated by.
Evidently Tampa has floating bridges, so Shan was not as impressed. We also took the tunnel under Mercer Island – Shannon was glad she was not driving. We had dinner in Kirkland, which has a fun downtown area. We went to an Irish Pub and had a great dinner! When we got back to my cousins house we saw the nursery which is awaiting the arrival of twin boys (they are scheduled to be born this Thursday, October 16th) It was great to be able to spend time with Betsy and Rob again, we had a great time both in July and September. I hope to be able to visit them again soon – I am sure they will welcome any help with the boys.

Space Needle and the Real World

We decided not to go up in the space needle. It was $16 a person and after talking to a couple of people who got off the elevator, we decided it was not worth it. Somehow we did lose each other in the gift shop though. It is a circular shop on the ground floor and we were both kept moving around the circle looking for each other. I finally had to call Shannon to find her. It was pretty funny.
We found this nice spot to take some pictures with the space needle.
We then left the Seattle Center and headed back down to Alaska Way, which is where the Real World House was. Here is a picture of the space needle as we drove away. As we were walking down the street we saw the Golden Princess leaving. The Golden is a sister ship to the one we were on. Here are some pictures as it sails away.
I admittedly did not watch the Real World Seattle season (I have only watch one season in my life), but Shannon was a big fan. Finding the house was high on her list of things to do in Seattle. The funny thing about it, is that when I was Seattle in June she was telling me she wanted to go while I was stopped at a railroad crossing directly in front of it, but had no idea that was it. The house was located at Pier 70 Evidently this is where some fight took place and somebody threw something into the ocean – guess you had to watch the show. The things about this location, is that after the show was over a new owner bought the place and had totally redone the whole thing. So it does not look anything like it did during the Real World and the house is gone. But the door was here.
Here is Shannon by the door.
Now there is a nice restaurant where you can go eat (or in our case walk around and take pictures of.) This is one of my favorite pictures. Over the course of the cruise Shannon and I took many pictures of the two of us by holding her camera out and taking the picture. This was our first attempt. As you can see we failed. I was standing to the right of Shannon. Many times during the cruise we would find this picture for a good laugh.

From the Real World house we headed towards the Pike Place Market. On the way we saw this road sign...